Preamble Hello. Most local derbies, by their very nature, exist independently of the league table; their main purpose is to determine bragging rights and, more importantly, which set of supporters kickstarts the fights in local pubs that evening. But with Newcastle and Sunderland today, it's different. In this almost unprecedented snakes-and-ladders relegation battle, one result can change so much. If Newcastle (17th) lose by two goals today, they go into the relegation zone. But if they win, they go above Sunderland (13th), who if they win go into the top half of the table. It's daft.

Newcastle are better than Sunderland on paper, but they have damaging injuries, not to mention a manager whose season has been soundtracked by this and who, as Paul Hayward points out here, has been on the wrong end of a DeLorean. I think they are in big trouble, and many would relish the relegation of a club that has mistreated so many good managers (and some utterly useless ones), although there are surely three worse teams in this league, especially if the likes of Viduka and Martins recover fitness sooner rather than later.

Sunderland aren't a great side, but they float along unnoticed, like Treefingers on Kid A, and they haven't a prayer of going down. This isn't to say that they are too good to go down, only that they are too good to go down this season. They are almost favourites today - though not with the bookies - and I fancy them to get a 1-1 in a thoroughly poor game.

a) an unfathomable success given its flimsy lead characters, cliched plot and palpable soullessness

b) the most offensive portrayal of another culture since Lost In Translation

c) absolute gash

d) all of the above, but especially c), and really more than anything c)

Nadal has beaten Federer 6-2 in the fifth, by the way Sport doesn't get any better than those two just now, does it? In fact, cherubic figure that I am, I am struggling to recall a more compelling and, more importantly, incredibly high-class rivalry. Except Newcastle v Sunderland, livehereontheguardian.com/sportrightnow.

An email about tennis "Federer vs Nadal sport's best rivalry? How about Taylor vs Barney?" says Gary Naylor, carefully opening a can of worms about whether anything involving really fat people can count as sport. "Perhaps we should be grateful to have both duels, but where I can see Barney beating The Power in the future, I can't see Federer ever having the mental strength to beat Nadal. Nadal's knees might beat Nadal though. But, for now, at least one Rafa knows how to win."

The atmosphere is pretty wonderful, by the way.

1 min Off we go, with Sunderland kicking off from left to right. Yeah, the atmosphere is absolutely fantastic.

2 min Both sides are playing a genuine 4-4-2, and one of those two strikers, Andy Carroll, puts an early reducer in on Bardsley, a reversal of the traditional roles of striker and defender in the first five minutes. Howard Webb has a word and, rightly, no more.

3 min Malbranque, playing down the left today, almost gets in down the middle but Bassong welts the loose ball clear with the enthusiasm of a young boy kicking a schoolteacher up the bum, having paid his 10p for charity, at a school fete.

4 min Risible nonsense. A free-kick is swung in from the left by Malbranque; Ferdinand goes for it with Harper, and knocks him over with a hit in the ribs, only a slight extension of a perfectly reasonable challenge. A foul but no more. While Harper is down, a few Newcastle players bundle in, and the crowd demand that he be locked up or, worse still, given guest editorship of OSM. Much ado about sweet eff.

6 min It's all very thud-and-blunder at the moment, and Cisse - cookie-coloured beard today - scuffs a left-footed daisy-cutter miles wide from 20 yards.

8 min Newcastle are the only team not to lose a league game at Old Trafford since last February. It is, indeed, a funny old game.

9 min Sunderland have started well here. Not so much in terms of quality - it's been shoddy at best - but they have pinned Newcastle back and squashed what you suspect was a planned fast start from the home side. They've yet to quieten the crowd, mind.

10 min Jones goes down in the box and looks hopefully, but only in the way I'd look hopefully if I was within 500 feet of Scarlett Johansson. Nothing doing, and he knew it.

11 min "Great sporting rivalries," begins Michael Gibbons. "How about Ronnie O'Sullivan versus his inner demons? It his horribly compulsive viewing watching a man who can move from serene brilliance to tanking spectacularly in a moment."

12 min Damien Duff. Discuss. To my increasing shame, I suggested in 2006 that Manchester United should have spent the £5m they spent on Evra on Duff instead. He's still only 29, or at least that's what the birth certificate says. He's playing on the right today by the way. I say playing.

13 min It's poor so far: garbled and witless. It means too much. Either that or most of the players just aren't very good.

14 min "Oi, Smyth," ois Ian Copestake. "'The most offensive portrayal of another culture since Lost In Translation'? I thought Lost in Translation's portrayal of Americans was spot on." Racist.

16 min Superb leap from Carroll, who heads down a long, angled free-kick for Ameobi, 10 yards out, to spin and hit straight at Fulop. It was no more than a half-chance.

18 min Bardsley is booked for a pointless sliding foul on Gutierrez by the touchline well inside Newcastle's half. A fair decision from Howard Webb, and you can't always say that.

19 min "From the sublime (Federer vs Nadal) to the ridiculous (Sunderland vs Newcastle) in mere moments," says Stephen Spencer. "How ugly is this game going to be? Sweating, sour-faced managers, angry disillusioned fans, a fat-necked, clueless chairmen who can't give his own club away and players terrified of the drop hoofing the ball into the stands. Ninety minutes of pain and suffering followed by abject humiliation for the losers. This is what the Premier League is all about, the football equivalent of a bucket of gastric acid. Brilli." You misspelt 'swearing'. Oh.

20 min A huge double escape for Newcastle. Richardson took a free-kick from wide on the right and whipped it into the corridor of uncertainty. I'm pretty sure he wasn't going for goal, but it went past everyone, including the keeper Harper, and bounced onto the face of the far post. It came back to Jones, seven yards out, and his shot was cleared off the line by the debutant Nolan.

21 min From the ensuing corner, Richardson had a shot from 10 yards that was desperately blocked by a sprawling defender.

22 min Now Carroll hits the bar at the other end. Enrique humped over a cross from deep on the left and Carroll, beyond the far post, got above Bardsley and looped a very clever header back across the goal and onto the top of the bar. It was smart play, because there was no pace on the cross so he had to try to guide it.

23 min Butt is booked for going to ground and missing a tackle on Whitehead in the centre circle. There wasn't much in it, and it's very much a noughties booking.

24 min Robert Smithson has a Duff theory, but not necessarily a duff one. "I'd say Newcastle United is the problem. They seem to make a habit out of destroying great players. Laurent Robert, Albert Luque and Duff are three of the best out and out left wingers since the turn of the millenium (Don't laugh, Depor-era Luque was nigh on unstoppable. Ask Milan) and Newcastle reduced their careers to cinders. Quite why we'll probably never know, but if I were a footballer I'd avoid Newcastle like the plague, no matter how much money they offered me." Well exactly, which makes it even more unfathomable that he turned down Liverpool and Tottenham when he went to Newcastle. The lack of ambition in that decision was shocking.

25 min Sunderland are certainly the better team, though not by a huge amount. Richardson is playing really well in the centre of midfield, as is Bassong in the centre of Newcastle's defence.

27 min Taylor breaks clear on the right and sidefoots a cross back to Ameobi, 14 yards out and in line with the near post. Can you guess which row of the crowd he found? I'll give you a clue: it's between Y and Z.

28 min "Newcastle have a few players like Duff - essentially still gaining mileage out of their career because of heights they hit years ago and the hope they can hit them again," says Michael Gibbons. "People still believe Michael Owen only needs a run of games to start scoring St Etienne-type goals again, that Duff can be the winger who terrorised the 2002 World Cup (where Nicky Butt was Pele's favourite player, allegedly) or that Obafemi Martins must still have in him what Inter Milan saw early on. The reality is that those players have gone, never to be seen again." Amen to that, especially Owen. The incredulity at his omission from the England squad leaves me, well, incredulous. He was finished at 21.

29 min Harper makes a very decent save, although I don't know whether it was from a cross or a shot by Cisse. Jones won a header on the edge of the box to send Cisse into the channel and his cross/shot (actually looking at the replay I think it was a cross that nicked off Coloccini) was palmed off the top by Harper, hastily moving back towards his own goal having originally shaped for a cross.

GOAL! Newcastle 0-1 Sunderland (Cisse 32) Sunderland deserve this. Whitehead, just in front of the centre circle, lobbed a fairly aimless second ball back towards the Newcastle area and Cisse, who looked so far offside that basically everyone stopped playing, had his first effort well saved by Harper before tapping the second into an open net. But replays showed he wasn't offside at all. Coloccini stepped up fecklessly and, at the moment Whitehead played the ball forward, he was level with Cisse.

34 min "It must be frustrating for the Newcastle fans having a player like Bardsley playing in front them today," says Ian Copestake, "seeing as he is one letter short of memories of genius." How do you think they feel when they read French newspapers, with all those goading 'Le's?

35 min Richardson gives the ball away to Gutierrez, responds by funkily and cynically taking him down, and is inevitably and justly booked.

38 min "How come both teams are wearing black shorts?" says Simon Frank. "Aren't Sunderland supposed to change?" I think they're being worn as a mark of respect for Newcastle Football Club.

40 min A good spell for Newcastle, with Gutierrez - who has played with truly admirable endeavour - beating a couple of players on the left and pulling it back for Butt, whose left-foot shot from the edge of the box is blocked.

42 min Newcastle are having a good spell of possession but Sunderland are pretty comfortable. They have been cooler and classier so far, like someone with their wits about them who is able to bob and weave while a raging drunk fresh-airs attempted haymakers at them.

43 min "Any chance of an Andy Carroll hairdo update?" says Nicky Clarke, operating under his latest pseudonym of Karl Meakin. "His cornrows 'effort' was more offensive than Slumdog Millionaire + Lost in Translation x Joe Jitsu from the old Dick Tracy cartoons." He soon got rid of the Sisqo haircut, probably for fear of confusing Joe Kinnear in view of the presence of Xisco, and today it's neck length, messy and slightly wavy. Textbook roguish-builder-who-secretly-reckons-he'll-one-day-be-discovered-as-a-model hair. Like mine, then.

44 min Ferdinand heads a corner down and Richardson zips past one man before shooting straight at Harper from 10 yards. It was with his wrong foot, the right, and he also slipped as he took the shot. He's had a very good half, though.

Half time: Newcastle 0-1 Sunderland Sunderland deservedly lead, even if Djibril Cisse's goal was pretty tame in most respects. I'm off to score some hot drink. See you in 15 minutes.

Half-time chit-chat "Slumdog and Lost in Translation do have one rather redeeming quality in common that should not be overlooked...two of the best soundtracks in the last few years," says Elliot Jacobs. "You have to give it to Boyle - he knows how to make the best use of music..I'd suggest that Trainspotting was the most popular movie soundtrack for years and the music featured in The Beach elevated the film to a level of mediocrity." Ha, quite. Yes he does, and Slumdog reminds of the soundtrack to Amores Perros, in the sense that I remember reading a review of that soundtrack which said something like "put this on at a dinner party and you won't get to the end of the third track before somebody asks you what it is". I don't do dinner parties, I have ABV parties, but I reckon Slumdog would have a similar impact.

46 min Off we go again. Newcastle's bench options, by the way, might legitimately be used in a Collins to demonstrate the meaning of the word 'limited': Krul, Xisco, Geremi, Lovenkrands, Edgar, LuaLua, Donaldson.

47 min When a corner is cleared, Gutierrez plays it back into the box and Nolan, eight yards, turns and screws a shot through Bardsley's legs and straight at Fulop. It was no sort of chance really.

48 min A woeful pass from Butt allows Sunderland to break with Cisse. He runs 70 yards to the edge of the Newcastle box but then pokes a miserable curler that was neither cross nor shot across goal and wide.

49 min Newcastle are having lots of pressure at the start of the second half, and McCartney heads off the line for Sunderland. Fulop came to meet a cross, missed it, and with a defensive header from one of his own players looping under the bar, McCartney ran back to head up and over.

53 min Big decision here from Howard Webb, who has booked Duff for diving in the box. Duff ran onto a really good angled pass from the left touchline by Enrique and burst past Ferdinand. Then he went over, and was appalled not to get a penalty, but I think that's a really good decision from Webb. If there was any contact whatsover - and I'm not sure there was - it came from Duff dragging his leg into Ferdinand's. That's brilliant refereeing actually, because live it looked a very good shout.

55 min Djibril Cisse limps off to be replaced by the former Newcastle striker Michael Chopra.

56 min Sunderland are conceding far too much ground here. It's not necessarily a conscious decision, as it's usually something you do without realising, like social ineptitude and being you, but they need to do something about because Newcastle are really pushing them back.

58 min A crunching but legitimate tackle from Bassong on Jones leads to him limping off - they thought he'd need a stretcher at first - and he's getting treatment on the sidelines.

59 min "Can't be bothered to answer all the sixth-form grammar-school cynicism and clever humour from the rootless cosmopolitans in this match report but let me be the first working-class Toon fan to say that relegation won't be the end of the world for us," says John. "We'll get rid of Cashley and if things go to plan we the fans will buy the club then we'll rise again as a supporters' run club." Except you won't, will you? It's a lovely idea, but so is happiness. Also, I know people who are working class and went to a grammar school. And I know people who do drink drinky drink by the gallon and do hate themselves in an existential kind of way. These things aren't mutually exclusive you know. You are perpetuating exactly the same kind of stereotype you working-class, bitter-drinking, football-living-and-breathing mineworkers criticise.

60 min Carroll goes up for a high ball with Ferdinand; they both miss it, but as soon as he lands he's hopping around like that kid in Inbetweeners when he has the wasp in his Alton Towers costume. He too is hobbling off to get treatment, but this one looks very similiar to the injury sustained by Michael Owen in the week, and I doubt he'll be back. Unlike Kenwyne Jones, who is back on the field.

62 min Newcastle are the sort of team that, even if the door was unlocked and in need of only a gentle handle-turn to open, they would try to huff and puff and blow it down. They are witless and haven't got a clue, basically. If Sunderland don't win this, they should be shot.

65 min Gutierrez is fouled by McCartney, runs a bit and then falls over. McCartney is booked. It's the right decision because it was a poor tackle, but I think Gutierrez took at least one stride too many before going down. Or maybe his brain is just unusually slow when it comes to registering pain. Talking of which, don't you hate that split-second after you accidentally kick something, when you know this is really going to hurt but you haven't felt the pain yet.

67 min: AS BAD A DECISION AS YOU'LL EVER SEE IN A GAME THAT ISN'T REFEREED BY ROB STYLES Newcastle have a penalty and it is nonsense. Absolute nonsense. Taylor runs into the box on the right-hand side, with Malbranque at his side. There is barely any contact at all, just the usually jostling of arms, but Taylor falls over - I'm not saying he dived; he may well just have lost his balance (POST-GAME ADDITION: I TAKE THAT BIT BACK) - and Howard Webb gives a penalty. That's a decision so bad that Rob Styles would have been proud to call it his own.

68 min: GOAL! Newastle 1-1 Sunderland (Ameobi 68pen) A brilliant penalty from the oft-criticised Ameobi, sidefooted unsaveably high into the right-hand side of the net as Fulop dived to his right. That took some stones, that.

70 min "Gutierrez appears to have the hair and, if that dive is anything to go by, the acting ability of Angelina Jolie," notes Gary Naylor. Don't do that to me, Naylor.

70 min Andy Reid has replaced Carlos Edwards, who I'd genuinely forgotten was on the pitch, so anonymous was he.

71 min While Sunderland were fiercely unlucky with that penalty, they are also culpable in the sense that they ceded all initiative to Newcastle. Now that the score is level they are attacking again and - hey presto - they look the better side.

73 min Andy Reid is denied by an excellent save from Harper. Jones ran on to a long angled pass from the right and muscled both Coloccini and Bassong aside. The ball ran loose, off the covering Taylor and back to Reid, 15 yards out. His shot was saved splendidly by the onrushing Harper. From the loose ball, Nolan brings down someone inside the D, but Richardson - who scored the winner in the return fixture from a similar position - spanks it into orbit.

75 min Howard Webb, who looked a very promising referee 18 months ago, has started to believe his own publicity hasn't he? That decision was wretched. Not that I'd tell him to his face. He works in the police force, you know.

76 min Ferdinand was booked for complaining about the penalty, incidentally.

78 min "How can you claim Taylor didn't dive?" says Adam Murphy. "This is the man who gave us these shameful perfomances." But he's English! And we don't dive!

79 min Ameobi reverts to type, missing an open goal. Sort of. Duff clipped over a brilliant right-footed cross from the right which beat the outrushing Fulop and hit Ameobi - six yards out at the far post and with an empty net in front of him - before going square and straight into the arms of Fulop. In Ameobi's defence, he probably expected Fulop to get the ball, but he did have an open goal in front of him. That's all I'm saying.

80 min "As I am not watching the match, can you please clarify which of the following "improvements" to NUFC Nolan has brought from Bolton," begins Lee Calvert. "1) Blocking the opposing keeper at corners; 2) Being 'a threat in the air at set pieces'; 3) More aggressive referee-pestering; 4) All of the above." He's pla- is he playing?

83 min Andy Carroll is replaced by Peter Lovenkrands.

84 min Some excellent defensive covering from Richardson, the man of my match, stops a dangerous Newcastle counter-attack. It's a ragged game now and it's anyone's. Which almost certainly means it'll be 1-1. But, as Alan Smith points out on Sky, Newcastle need a win more.

85 min Ameobi heads a clipped free-kick down and into the healthy bosom of Fulop - you could eat your dinner of it - but he'd been flagged offside anyway.

86 min Sunderland have just missed an absolute sitter. Chopra was one-on-one after winning a 50-50 with Coloccini, admittedly slightly to the left of goal, but instead of opening up his body and curling it into the far corner - as anybody with anything resembling a set would have done, especially against their old club - he tried to stab a ball square to the unmarked Jones with the outside of the right foot. Jones would have had an open goal, but it was a high-risk pass for all bar players of the highest class. Ergo, Chopra ballsed it up completely, overhitting it miles past Jones. It's even more peculiar because, if there's one thing Chopra can do, it's finish. He bottled that, basically.

90 min There will be five minutes of stoppage time, and it's all Newcastle now.

90+2 min Lovenkrands, wide on the left, comes back infield and clips a speculative ball towards the far post. It almost drifts into the corner with Fulop beaten, but lands on top of the net.

90+3min The Newcastle fans go up for a penalty when Gutierrez's cross hits Bardsley. That looked a decent shout, because there were maybe eight yards between the two players, but no replays have yet to show whether it actually hit his hand.

90+5 min A superb pass from Reid down the middle appears to have released Jones, but Harper charges out of his box and just gets their first. That was great goalkeeping. Then, from the next attack, Andy Reid is this close to a winner. A long ball was headed down to the edge of the box by Edgar; Reid took one touch then slashed across a lovely half-volley that whistled a fraction wide of the far post with Harper stuck to the spot. Oof.

Full time: Newcastle 1-1 Sunderland So Sunderland stay 13th and Newcastle go to 15th. Both sides will feel they could have won it. Newcastle because of their admirable spirit and because of the momentum they had in the second half; Sunderland because they were palpably superior technically, because Newcastle were given a scandalous penalty, and because Andy Reid shot about an inch wide in injury time. It was a decent game, and I'm off to do something else now. Bye.